Intro
It's been almost 3 months since the DAOs funds were put under the control of the SPS DAO Treasurers and overall things have been going pretty well. There have been a few situations come up that we've had to figure out how to work through and as development on the SPS Chain will hopefully be ramping up to full speed soon, it's a good idea to outline a few procedural points to help standardize processes moving forward.
Changing Treasurers
We recently had a situation arise where one of the treasurers wanted to resign and we had to determine a solution on how to proceed. The option that seemed most obvious was to allow the next highest voted candidate to fill the spot, which is ultimately what we did, but this could still use a standardized practice on how to proceed.
If this proposal passes, whenever a treasurer resigns, the standard practice for resolving a resignation will be for the DAO Project Manager, or in the absence of one, the remaining treasurers to quickly reach out to the next available candidate that is eligible for a Treasurer position whom has the highest amount of stake-weighted support from the community to offer them the position.
If the next eligible candidate accepts, then the Treasurers will proceed to add the candidate to the DAOs multisig wallets before removing the resigning Treasurer's access. It should be done this way to ensure that the DAO never has less than 11 signatories assigned to the multisig wallets at any given time.
If the next eligible candidate is unable to be reached within one week, then the treasurers should proceed to the next candidate with the highest amount of stake-weighted support and will continue this cycle until the quorum of 11 SPS DAO Treasurers is achieved.
Elections for SPS Treasurers will be held regularly, beginning no later than 11 months after the previous elections have concluded. Elections can be held earlier if requested via passing an SPS DAO Proposal or if the number of eligible Treasurers falls below 15 candidates.
Proposal Funding
Previously we've ran into issues where we'd have multiple proposals running at once with unclear instructions related to funding the proposals. It should be a basic expectation of any proposal requesting funds from the SPS DAO to clearly outline the source of the funds that are being requested and every attempt should be made to ensure funds are not being apportioned to multiple proposals.
If this proposal passes, the SPS DAO Treasurers will reject funding to any proposal that is passed without a clear indicator of which funds are being requested from which wallet and any funds that are currently earmarked for a previously passed proposal cannot be appropriated for a new proposal unless the new proposal expressly outlines that it is commandeering those funds and invalidating the previous proposal.
The SPS DAO Project Manager, or in the absence of one, the SPS DAO Treasurers, should make good faith attempts to communicate possible proposal funding discrepancies with proposal authors during the Drafting phase of a proposal's lifecycle to help mitigate potentially invalid proposals from proceeding to a full vote.
Invalid Proposals and Ambiguity
If an invalid proposal does manage to reach a full vote and pass, it will be up to the SPS DAO Project Manager, or in the absence of one, the SPS DAO Treasurers, to communicate to the author that their proposal is invalid and they will be required to create a new proposal that correctly outlines the source of funds to qualify for SPS DAO funding.
It is not in the scope of the Treasurer position to clarify or assume anything about a proposal that has already successfully passed the voting phase, even if the original author makes statements to clarify after the fact as this information could have potentially altered voting patterns.
Editing a proposal after the Draft phase has concluded will immediately invalidate the proposal. There are no exceptions.
Timely Response
In the event that a proposal does not specify any timeline or schedule for executing any related transactions from a valid proposal, then the SPS DAO Treasurers will aim to execute the transactions as quickly as possible.
In the event that there are scheduled or recurring transactions related to a valid proposal, the SPS DAO Treasurers will do their best to execute transactions in line with the schedule, but due to the nature of some of the mutlisig wallets, like on the HIVE blockchain, it can be extremely difficult to schedule transactions as it requires having 6 Treasurers online within a 1 hour window.
Halting Payments
In the event that there are recurring payments or invoices related to a proposal, it will be up to the SPS DAO Project Manager, or in the absence of one, the SPS DAO Treasurers, to ensure that the work or service being billed for is being delivered in accordance with the proposal to contract the work or service.
The SPS DAO Treasurers are able to halt payments being made on behalf of the DAO if at least six of them do not believe that the contracted work or service is being completed in a satisfactory fashion that complies with the terms of the proposal that originally contracted the work.
Creating and Ceasing Sources of Inflation
In the event that a proposal creates a source of inflation that deviates from the original SPS whitepaper, it is up to the SPS DAO Treasurers to ensure that the SPS tokens are being distributed in accordance with the proposal that introduced the new source of inflation. If it is not, then a majority of 6 SPS DAO Treasurers may decide to halt the source of inflation until compliance is met or a new proposal addresses the discrepancy.
Releasing and Recalling Liquidity to Bridges
Due to fluctuations in token prices, we have seen situations arise where the DAOs bridges can become too heavy on one side and the bridges will require additional tokens to maintain bilateral functionality. It is up to the SPS DAO Treasurers to moderate bridge liquidity by releasing and recalling funds between the reserve wallets and the bridge contracts.
The Treasurers should use their best judgement to reach a consensus about when bridges are over or under supplied and adjust supply accordingly. The main objective is for the bridges to have enough tokens on each side to remain fully operational without having excessive risk from too many tokens being held in the bridge contracts.
Like-Kind Substitutions
The SPS DAO Treasurers will be able to make like-kind token movements without the need for additional proposals. What this means is that Treasurers can perform simple actions like swapping the state of a token, such as transferring from one chain to another or staking and unstaking a token, or they may exchange one stable coin for an alternative stable coin should the need arise. They cannot buy or sell DAO assets without a proposal.
Emergency Action Scenarios
While it is impossible to foresee every possible scenario that could require immediate response, it is important for the SPS DAO to allow and empower the SPS DAO Treasurers some autonomy to make decisions that protect the DAOs interests and funds with the highest sense of urgency.
The SPS DAO Treasurers will be able to immediately recall any of the DAO's exposed funds that are held in pools, bridges, wallets or contracts that become compromised or lose functionality and return them back into the custody of a DAO Treasury multisig wallet without any need for a proposal.
Conclusion
In the event that this proposal passes, these will be the standard guidelines that the SPS DAO Treasurers will follow when executing transactions on behalf of the SPS DAO. It is impossible to foresee every possible scenario that could arise, so there will likely be periodic proposals to update these guidelines in the future.